
Book^A<5/9 



X 



STAND BY THE PRESIDENT! 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 




NATIONAL UNION ASSOCIATION 



c:f cx±<5-<DX±^i<rj^T: 



MARCH 6. 1'863. 



BY REV. CHARLES G. AMES. 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE ASSOCIATION. 



•' Ltit it alwafyg he remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under 
ftreumstaniesirCtehichthe ramom, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances 
fometimesthibiow, vicisitiivdes of fortune often discouragino, in fituations in which not tnifreiiuently want of 
fticcets has cowiiennnced the spirit of criticism, the ccnstancy of your support teas the essential prop of the 
tforls, and a guaranty of the plans by which they were effected."— Washington's Farewell Address. 



CINCINNATI: 
JOHNSON, STEPHENS & CO., PEINTERS. 

1-11 WAIN STREET, BELOW FOUKTH. 

1863. 



,3 



" As Commander in Chief of the Army and Wauy^ in time of 
vjar^ 1 suppose J have a right to take any measure which. 7nay 
"best subdue the enetnyP — Abraham Lincoln, God bless him ! 



"And the hands of the President, tlie chosen aud only head of 
the nation, must be strengthened by the people. He is striving in 
this hour of peril, Avith all his strength to save the country. Let the 
people pledge to him their most generous confidence and support 

and not turn from him in coldness or palsy his efforts with a 

feble and half confidence. Pledge, then, to the President, the lives 
and fortunes of an united people. Let him be sustained and carried 
in triumph through the struggle. His patriotism and self-sacriiice 
deserve it — our duty demands it." — " Call " for a Convention of 
Massachusetts Conservatives, Sept. 1862. 



ADDRESS 



My Countrymen and Brothees: — I desire to speak to you a 
word of encouragement. I believe there is no good reason to 
despair of the Republic. To be sure, the war has lain bare our 
weak points, and lias disclosed an uncalculated amount of corrup- 
tion among our people ; but it has also developed a sterling 
bravery and patriotism, and given us a marvellous consciousness 
of power. We are learning wisdom from our own folly ; learning 
success fiom our own failures, even as children learn to walk by 
stumbling. And the furnace-fires of our great trial are slowly 
purifying us of our silly selfishness and partisan bitterness. 

We have at last touched bottom. We know the depth of our 
difficulties; we have measured the extent of our dangers. We 
have found out the magnitude of the Rebellion : it is great, but it 
can never be greater, and it is already perceptibly shrivelling. 
We have taken the gauge of its pow^er ; we know what work is 
before us; we can fully count the cost; and we may as well settle 
down to the war as a man goes to a day's work. 

We were never so strong as to-day. We have found no limit to 
our resources, nor to our recuperative power under disaster. We 
have money ; we have munitions ; we have men ; and, above all, 
thank God we have a righteous cause. We are the appointed 
guardians of Liberty and Law; we are the trustees of the natural 
rights of mankind ; we are the body-guard of Christian civilization ; 
and, for these high and holy services, we hold a commission from 
Heaven. 

And I trust v:e are getting our eyes open, so that we see the 
folly of wasting, in quarrels Avith each other and with our rulers, 
that strength which is needed for the common cause — for the 
overthrow of murderous treason, and the establishment of rightful 
authority. The true base for the operations of our armies is in 
the hearts of the people ; and we can serve the country, or we can 
betray it, through the newspapers, in legislative halls, in our public 
meetings, and on the streets, as really as in field or Cabinet. ^ A 
man can help to save his country at home ; and he can be a traitor, 
too, without going South. The available force of the Rebellion 
comprises all who sympathize with it, wherever found; just as 
the army of the Union comprises all the loyal souls in the Union. 
For our safety and success, v\^e must, like our brave brothers in 
arms, stand shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, seconding and 
supporting our leaders by every righteous means in our power. 

Let us not delude ourselves with the distracting and pernicious 
foolery which teaches that the country is to be saved, or can be 
saved, in some other way than by co-operating with the existing 
administration in the work of subduing the Rebellion. There 
must be unity of action : ^and we can have no rallying center for 



that unity except the constitutional authorities of the country. 
There must be a head ; and we can have no other head but the 
nation's Chief Magistrate and commander. An army must tight 
under its general, whoever he may be, or not fight at all. There 
can be disgraceful surrender; there can be bloody mutiny; there 
can be cowardly desertion ; "But there can be no victory, except 
through cordial co-operation with those in authority, and loyal 
obedience to orders. 

And I hold that the President of the United States, as Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the armies and navies of the nation, has a 
rightful authority over us all, and a just claim upon our generous 
and hearty support in the fearful task which Providence and the 
people have assigned him, of restoring the national sovereignty 
over the last scjuare inch of the national domain. When he lifted 
his manly right hand, and solemnly swore, before earth and 
heaven, that he would preserve, protect and defend the Constitu- 
tion of these States, he became the representative of us all ; he 
consented to eml)ody, in his sole person, the highest magistracy 
and executive power of the nation — the collected sovereignty of 
the whole people. He swore for us, and on our behalf; and be- 
tween us and him there is a covenant of God, to which we form a 
party. If there is any meaning in American citizenship, we all 
stand pledged, by all that is sacred in loyalty and in honor, to 
sustain him in the discharge of his public duties, and in the ad; 
ministration of his mighty trust. 

The President is no despot ; he is simply a public servant. But 
he is clothed with vast authority, not the less ; and this authority, 
though delegated by the people for their own use and benefit, is 
as real as that of any anointed and crowned monarch ; and is as 
much more worthy ot our respect as our popular government is 
superior to kingly rule. Disrespect to the authority of the Pres- 
ident, therefore, is disrespect to the Constitution which creates his 
office ; it is also disrespect to tile people who created that Con- 
stitution, and who reaffirmed it in the very act of voting for a 
President. We are not living together as a mere debating club ; 
we constitute a government ; and every attempt to abridge or 
bring into contempt the rightful powers of those who are charged 
with executing the functions of that government, or to embarrass 
them in the preservation and defense of that government, is an 
ofiense against the peace and dignity of the nation, which should 
be branded as infamous and punished as criminal. 

The right of impeaching a traitorous and perjured President is 
uncjucstioncd and unquestionable, as it ought to be ; but we have 
no right to exact or expect an impossible perfection in any of our 
public servants. An officer keeps good faith with the people — 
keeps the spirit and meaning of his oath — when he does the best 
he can ; when he performs his duties as he understands them. 
Most ofHcers are sworn to discharge their duties " to the best of 
their ability"' — a clause which recognizes this just limit of their 
obligation and excuses their inevitable and unintentional mistakes. 
Men do not become all-wise and all-mighty as soon as we elect 
them to public station. Chosen from among ourselves, they are 



men of like paasiona and infirmities with ourselves. They are 
what we should be, if we had been so unfortunate as to be in their 
places : subject to inadvertency, error, the bias of outside influ- 
ences and the limitations of all human wisdom and practical know- 
ledge. From Washington down, we have never had a perfect 
administration and never shall have one.* We have never had a 
President who was noc charged by his political enemies with 
violating the Coastitutiou; and we never can have, until we all 
understand that instrument alike. And yet, probably no nation 
was ever blessed with sixteen successive adaiinistratioas which 
were, on the whole, so free from deserved reproach, as those of 
our sixteen American Presidents. I think nearly all of them have 
kept the inaugural oath in good faith and with a good conscience. 
(Of course, we must always except the man who was incapable of 
good faith, and wlio never had a conscience 1) 

Bat I do not think any one of them all was more thoroughly 
true and trusty — more loyal and faithful to the Constitution 
and to the rights of the people — than ABSAHAii Lincoln. [Deafen- 
ing and long continued applause.] I think, also, the impartial 
Future — if he can afford to wait for its verdict — will award him 
the praise of a practical ability an I a wise sratesmaaship, which 
the ungenerous Present denies. Probably we have had but one 
or two Presidents who could have navigated the Republio through 
this stormy sea of difficulties with a steadier hand than the man 
who now sits at the helm. 

Mr. Lincoln has serious faults for a Chief Magistrate in troublous 
limes. He is over-amiable toward offenders ; else he would have 
unhorsed that man McClellan at the beginning of his shameful 
career of disobedience to superior orders. He does not read men 
well ; else he would never have entrusted important positions to 
men of doubtful loyalty. He is sometimes too slow for an emerg- 
ency, and so lets the enemy steal a march upon him. And he has 
doubtless made serious mistakes, both of omission and commission, 
in general policy. Bai^ conceding all this and much more, he ia 
nevertheless a great man, a strong, wise, sagacious statesman, an 
incarnaricm of patriotism ; of unimpeachable integrity ; of un- 
bending hrmness, when once convinced ; of industrious devotion 
to duty ; of broad views, taking in the vast future as well as the 
present, and the interests of the whole country as well as of the loyal 
North. A man less careful in action might have fallen into more 
hurtful errors. 

No partisan prompting bids me speak in vindication of the ad- 
ministration. Nor can it be vindicated from any partisan stand- 
point, as it has refused to be guided by partisan considerations. 
To advocate its claims upon our confidence and support in the 
present struggle has ceased, long ago, to be a partisan matter, aud 
has become a part ot patriotism. More deeply than I can toll you, 
do 1 feel that the triumph of the nation's cause, and the security 



• Joha A'iiEUi called TVaAijgtoa a "d/U." J^:Ti.-sja cbjir^^ed him with ileji^us againut publio 
libarcy. Wasbiugion himi«lf, ui hia FarawcU A'Xdctaa, tbaalLs the Americau p^^^ple lur judgiug so 
kindly of the imp>:neo:igai 01 nii publie s-jrvio^i, aud adiaits that ''aot uairaqiuudy, \f*ai ol 8U<>wm 
ooBQWiMttted th4 fyint of criti«i<m." 



of its very life, depend largely on the degree of confidence which 
the people repose in their rulers and leaders. An enemy has been 
sowing tares among us ; and we have unwittingly hurt our own 
cause and given aid and comfort to the rebel conspirators, by a 
groundless, wrongful distrust of the Federal Administration — by 
a heedless habit of scolding about the President, the Cabinet, and 
Congress, as though they were the real conspirators ! — by an un- 
generous and unjust way of criticising our public servants, who, 
amid untold embarrassments and ever-multiplj'ing difficulties, 
have been doing their honest best to work out the country's 
salvation. 

We should be candid enough, at least, to make allowance for 
these difficulties; difficulties which the administration did not 
create, and for the magnitude and multitude of which it is in no 
sense responsible. The purest and best government possible to 
mankind could be broken down and destroyed, if its own friends 
would credit the slanders of its enemies, and join in their accusa- 
tions, denunciations and assaults, as we Jiave been foolish enough 
to do — magnifying every error and blinding ourselves, by passion 
and pre-judgment, to every excellence. Even if the administra- 
tion were absolutely faultless in all respects, it would have been 
simply impossilvle for it to please such a whimsical and distracted • 
people as we are. In the rush and excitement of a stormy time, 
w^e have become unreasonable, ^\''hat could be more unreasona- 
ble than to charge the disorders of the country upon those who are 
doing their utmost to heal them ' So we have let our own hys- 
terics disqualify us for judging justly of either men or measures. 
The more I study our public affairs, and the more I ponder 
over our recent history, the deeper is my conviction that the 
present administration has suffered the greatest injustice at the 
hands of the people, both for what it has done and for what it has 
not done. Let me recall to your minds the circumstances under 
which this administration took possession and charge of the 
machinery of government. 

When Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated — two years and two 
days ago — secession had already commenced; and the policy of 
letting the Union go to pieces without attempting to maintain the 
federal authority — the policy of letting the rebels have every thing 
their own way, and even of helping them to seize the guns of the 
Union and turn them against the Union — was already the estab- 
lislied order, or disorder, of things ; the fatal precedent having 
been fixed upon us through the weakness and wickedness of a 
man who was not ashamed to call himself " the last President of 
the United States." Northern Democratic leaders and presses — 
deeply embittered by their recent political defeat, and half ready 
to disavow allegiance to a President whom their party did not 
elect — were openlj'- and violently opposed to all attempts at co- 
ercing seceded States. The Southern planting interest might 
combine to coerce the Soutliern loyalists- -might rob, and imprison, 
and slioot, and stab, and hang and burn all who bore true and 
faithful allegiance to the Constitution of their country — might 
seize the national property, drive out the federal judges, and pro- 



claim beforehand its intention to capture and hold the federal 
capital and dictate terms to the remaining States— but there mus^ 
be no coercion used in maintaining the federal authority! And 
6ome of these men declared that if troops were raised in the North 
for such a purpose, such troops should never reach MaRon and 
Dixon's line ^vithout marching over dead bodies! The rebels 
were thus encouraged to believe that nearly half the people of the 
North would justify, if not assist them, in throwing off the author- 
ity of the new President, and asserting themselves the masters of 
American destiny. And the weakness, cowardice and treachery 
of the Buchanan dynasty had disheartened us all. There was 
little spirit, courage, hope, or energy in the North. Men's hearts 
failed for fear, in looking after the things that were coming upon 
the land. The conspirators alone w^ere bold and defiant ; their 
reign of terror not only suffocated the Union men of the South, 
but also overshadowed the continent. 

Barely escaping assassination, the new President sat down 
gloomily in the empty mansion, with an empty treasury, a swarm 
of traitors in all offices, spies about his very person, the atmos- 
phere of Washington hissing with venomous secession serpents. 
His first work was to organize his administration — a work always 
difficult and delicate, now doubly so on account of the general 
distraction and dangers. Before he had time to complete the 
appointments, the thunder of rebel cannon startled the whole 
nation. Seventy devoted men, shut up in Fort Sumter, besieged 
by seven thousand rebels, and by starvation, were forced to sur- 
render. 

Thus war began by the act of the South. That sovereignty 
which the President had sworn to protect and defend was assailed 
by force of arms. But his hands v\^ere tied. The nation owned 
forty-two ships of war: all but six of them had been purposely 
sent beyond his reach, cruising in the Mediterranean and other 
distant waters. The nation had a small standing army of some 
twenty regiments. They were away to the Kocky Mountains and 
beyond. Washington itself was menaced on every side, and the 
Plug Ugiies of Baltimore needed but a word to stir them to deeds 
of horror. 

What if Abraham Lincoln had been a coward then ? 

He calmly appealed to the loyal masses of the country, saying, 
"This is your government as much as mine. I have sworn to 
defend it,' and I shall try. Give me men and means!" Then 
came that sublimest scene in our annals, which a friendly French- 
man has called ''• The uprising of a Great People." O it was a 
spectacle for the ages! There were heroic periods of Roman and 
Grecian history, and there have been stirring events in the life of 
many another nation ; but you and I have lived, and are still living, 
in a peerless time ! 

The President committed the safety and honor of the IvepubUc 
to the people; and the cold, dying embers of hope in their hearts, 
swept by tiie breath of patriotism, glowed like living coals of fire. 
The men of the North rushed to arms, and to the rescue, with a 



8 

unanimity which seemed to indicate that political animosities and 
old party fends were buried and foro'otten. The cowardly sympa- 
thizers with treason in these free States were awed into silence, 
and not a dog wagged his tongue except to give in a professed 
adhesion to tlie loyal cause with well dissembled insincerity. I 
never trusted these men; I always felt that they were as snakes in 
the grass ; I continually expected just what has since taken place : — 
a cunning, sneaking, hypocritical, diabolical attempt to assasinate 
the government by stabbing it in the back, while the bolder, man- 
lier foe should strike in front. But alas ! I did not dream that 
such multitudes of loyal men would be hoodwinked into aliance 
and dalliance with them ; nor that so many of us would ever be 
found foolishly playing into their hands, by slandering our own 
rulers out of the confidence of the people. 

But from that day to this, the administration has steadil}-, 
honestly, and earnestly, pursued its original purpose of putting- 
down the rebellion and restoring the federal authority. And, 
with all our complaining, it has moved far on in the path toward 
ultimate euccesB. See Vvdiat has been accomplished! Beginning 
without an army — Vv'ithout guns, accoutrements, means of trans- 
portation, tents, or comm.issariat, and, what was worse, beginning 
without experience in any of these matters, imd with much of the 
best educated military talent arrayed on the rebel side ; it has 
raised, equipped, mobilized, and found means of sustaining an 
aggregate of nearly a million soldiers, who, with all their just and 
grievous grounds of complaint in many cases, have been better 
paid, belter fed, better clothed, and better cared for when sick and 
wounded, than was ever an army of similar dimensions before 
since the world was made. 

Beginning with so small a fleet, it has created a navy of more 
than four hundred vessels, including an iron-clad flotilla outnum- 
bering all the wooden war-ships we had two years ago, so that 
America " rules the waves" — the wonder and dread of all unfriend- 
ly nations. 

Beginning tvith a people of no military habits or tastes — with a 
people who never felt the burden of government, and who hardly 
knew that they had a country — a people chiefly devoted to the 
dollar and far more intent on private advantages than on the 
public welfare — it has made us a nation of soldiers, capable of 
giving and taking the hardest blows of war; and it has put us 
well on the way to become also a nation of Spartan patriots. 

"True," says an objector, "the administration has got together a 
multitude of soldiers; but it has made miserable work of organ- 
izing and managing tiiem." I answer, this was an unavoidable 
consequence, considering the material with which the government 
had to deah In officering so large an army, and in organizing it 
by joint action with the governors of twenty states, was it to be 
expected that no unworthy men would receive commissions? 
There might have been wiser selections ; but only through the 
terrible trial by battle could real merit be discovered: only thus 
could cowardice and incompetence be made manifest. Slowly 
and at terrible cost, we are finding out and weeding out the un- 
worthy officers. The process is exceedingly delicate and diflicult ; 



9 

and it is not unattended with danger that worse ones may be put 
in their places ; but the path of imprOTement is now fairly 
entered upon, and every day adds something to the efficiency of 
onr legions. 

There is an apolog}^ for the appointment of unworthy men to 
both civil and military positions, which it shames me to present. 
Commissions are given to men because they show good recom- 
mendations. How should a Presitlent or governor know that the 
applicant is unworthy, when prominent and respectable citizens 
are his vouchers ? And if a knave or a fool get a commission on 
the s.rength of your testimonials or mine, who is most to blame? 
Two conditions are necessary to secure an honest administration 
of onr government, viz., An honest President, and an honest peo- 
ple. Gentlemen, we have the honest, President; but do not tell 
me the people are honest, so long as they knowingly help unwor- 
thy men into places of power and trust. 

There is laxity and disorder in the army ; there is recklessness, 
waste and fraud in the civil departments ; and I am ready to say 
it is a shame that the President doesn't " strike somebod}''" for 
these things, and insist on a purib'cation and a straightening. 
But then I am compelled to consider the enormous weight of 
cares which press upon him ; the prodigious multiplicity of details 
involved in carrying forward such complicated operations over so 
wide an extent of territory ; the chances that in employing so 
many agents to perform such various business there will be some 
unlit and some unfaithful. The remedy is partly with the Pres- 
ident, partly with the heads of departments, partly with the field 
commanders, still more with tiie people. When we become intel- 
ligent and virtuous, matters will move more smoothly. Till then 
no power out of heaven can save us, and no power in heaven 
save us, from jars and jargons, disorders and disasters. As 
for the President, poor man 1 he has never learned to split rails 
without beetle and wedges ; and with knotty, gnarly, cross-grained 
timber and bad tools, the work must go slowly, and the rails, when 
split, must be as crooked and unhandsome as himself. 

Consider in another aspect the kind of material with which the 
administration has be^n obliged to deal, and you will see good 
cause to think gently of its errors, and to speak well of its work. 
Perhaps no man was ever endowed with a higher or more active 
sense of general justice than Mr. Lincoln. He could never be 
the President of a party nor of a section ; and those who so con- 
sider him have surely mistaken their own prejudices for proofs. 
He is perpetually conscious of his obligation to the whole coun- 
try and to all classes of its people ; and he respects and wishes to 
serve every community and every man — every local and separate 
interest, as well as the general mass. This is one of the strongest 
points in his character. There are a few dozen "born democrats" 
in the country; and he is one of the intensest kind. He reverences 
the rights of all, and wishes to promote the welfare of all, so far 
as circumstances will permit, i wish he had more of that kind 
of individuality and Jacksonian independence which would enable 
him to impress himself upon the nation's character and life, so 



10 

that we could all look to him as a fountain of both policy and 
power; but no! his own sense of justice forbids, because this 
would then be his oovernment and not ours. It is in his very 
nature and his conscience to look to the people, and to ask what 
is their will, that he may be their servant. So he consents to 
consult those who hold every phase of opinion, with a view to 
conciliate and gratify tliem so far as possible. Not from timidity ; 
not from weakness, or want of will ; not because he has no mind 
of his own; not because he is easily influenced, as some wrongly 
imagine ; not from a wish to make himself agreeable or popular ; 
but rather from a desire to be just to every body, to give all inter- 
ests a fair representation, and to allow all classes a share in the 
practical management of affairs, so that this may be in truth a 
government hy the people. That is my reading of Abraham Lin- 
coln's character; and it explains to me the riddles which have so 
puzzled the critics of all parties. It explains the apparent inde- 
cision, the long halting at the forks of the roads — the no-policy — 
which for so long a time characterized his administration in the 
conduct of the war, and which came so frightfully near to making- 
shipwreck of the army and the country, simply because it drove 
the impatient people frantic, and left the ship to drift for a time 
without a helmsman. The whole crew were in council : he was 
consulting their will as to the best method of safety. 

The President was ready to take at j9«.;' every body's profession 
of loyalty; and he regarded it as both justice and sound policy 
to share the management of affairs with ail American citizens — all 
who would help to save the Union. Thus lie filled the first vacancy 
in the cabinet, after the war broke out, with a Democrat; thus he 
filled the chief places in the army with Democratic generals ; thus 
also he lent a patient ear to all that might be said about public 
policy, about the conduct of the war, and about the disposition to 
be made of the slavery question, by men of all opinions ; by men 
from Louisiana and men from Massachusetts, and especially by 
men from the border States, whose precarious attachment to the 
Union lie was, with good reason, solicitous to strengthen and con- 
firm, as there seemed ample need. 

And so the war must wait, the nation must wait, the commerce 
of Christendom must wait, till he had given all sides a fair hearing, 
submitting with miraculous fortitude to an irruption of advisers 
more trying to the patience than the eruptions of Job. But when 
at last he is ready for a decision — when the responsibility comes 
homo to him alone of choosing between several lines of policy of 
which only one can be followed — then the positive qualities of his 
character came out; and he shows us the strength with which he 
can grasp a conviction, the boldness with which he can announce, 
and the firmness with which he can maintain a principle of duty. 
Ilis eye sweeps over the vast territory of the Union and down the 
nation's future. He sees that slavery is the arch-enemy of our 
peace; tliat slavery is the arch-traitor to the Constitution; that 
slavery is the only cause of this terrible Rebellion, and its chief 
support; thai slavery is the viper which the Republic has warmed 
into life, and which has stung its unwise benefactor; and then, 



11 

obedient alike to his inaugural oath, to his view of the public 
emergency, and to the command of eternal justice, he "puts the 
foot down firmly" on that viper's neck ! God bless him ! and God 
blast the viper ! [Thundering applause.] 

As was to be expected, the President has been very widely and 
severely censured : by one class of citizens for not reaching this 
conclusion sooner, and by another class for reaching it at all. 
These very censures prove how utterly impossible it would have 
been for him to adopt any principle or policy, or measure, which 
we could all approve ; and that if the nation is to be saved at all, 
some of us must consent to waive our preferences and stand by 
the government, notwithstanding it has not seen fit to adopt our 
policy. 

I think the long delay, the willingness to give a fair hearing 
and trial to other plans, and the manifest reluctance of the Pres- 
ident to meddle needlessly with the old order of things, have been 
amply justified by the course of events. His policy has arrested 
the progress of secession in the border States, and has given the 
people of those States time to consider how much more desirable 
to them is the Union without slavery than slavery can be without 
the Union. His policy has probably given to the national armies 
a quarter of a million of Northern Democrats who would never 
have enlisted in what their leaders would have denounced as an 
" abolition war ; " but who, having once had a taste of what seces- 
sion means, have lost all scruples about striking rebellion in the 
most vital parts. 

Gen. Mitchell stated a short time before his death, that while in 
Northern Alabama, his troops had been engaged in guarding the 
plantations of men who were absent in the rebel army, thus em- 
ploying federal forces to keep slavery alive while the slave mas- 
ters should finish the work of destroying the Union ! And if 
pro- slavery counsels had prevailed, the President might have 
retained an uncertain hold upon the sympathy of a semi-disloyal 
people ; but he would surely have lost, and would have deserved 
to lose, a measure of the confidence of that very large, somewhat 
respectable, and wholly loyal body of citizens who do not believe 
that armed traitors have any claim to protection under a Constitu- 
tion which they disown and seek to destroy. Yet even in that 
trying case, yery few indeed of these loyal citizens would have 
withdawn their support from the government ; they would never 
have deserted the banner of che Union, though forced to fight in 
discouragement and despair. 

I marvel at what the administration has been able to a,ccom- 
l)lish, in this combination of embarrassing and distracting circum- 
stances. I marvel that it has been able to disarm Northern oppo- 
sition and hold it at bay so long and so well. I marvel at its 
success in retaining Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri in the 
Union ; and still more that their stay in the Union luis at last 
been made the decided choice of the people of those States. 
Equally do I marvel at the wisdom, moderation, and display of 
power, which have hitherto made it impossible or impolitic for 
either England or France to shake hands witli the Confederacy 



12 

except behind the door — a state of things which the Emancipation 
Proclamation has done much to confirm. 

Two years ago, I trusted Abraham Lincoln with trembling. To- 
day I trust him without trembling, but with a growing belief that 
God has gathered the power of twenty millions of freemen into 
the right arm of a single man for no unworthy purpose. If he 
will only fulfil his pledges and follow up the work he has so well 
begun of " saving the Union in the siiortest way, under the Con- 
stitution," we shall all be ready to join in the acclaim, "Well 
done, good and faithful servant I" and posterity will weep tears of 
gratitude over the tomb of one who accomplished a greater work 
than Washington. 

Citizens 1 as true Union men, it is now an important part of our 
work to frown upon the slanderers of the administration, and to 
enlighten and correct a public opinion which those slanderers 
have bewildered and perverted. We must go before our coun- 
trymen and say, Let us stand by the President of the United 
States, as he stands by us ! Let us give him men and money, and 
generous sympathy in his trying duties, and words of cheer through 
whatever days of darkness and disaster may yet await the Republic. 
Let us be free to speak words of counsel and of criticism ; but 
always with a view to help and strengthen, and never with a view 
to hinder and embarrass. Let us count that man a public enemy 
who would hreak the force of any hlovj which is meant to crush 
the rebellion, or loho would weaken the arm of any officer who 
strikes at treason. 

But our natural impatience has made us unjust. The govern- 
ment needs not only men and money, but time also, for the per- 
formance of a great work. No war goes fast, especially wlicre the 
operations are extensive. Great armies watch each other for 
months, hoping to secure favorable combinations or desirable 
positions, by various strategic manoeuvers. Our fathers fought 
eight years to secure a beginning for our national existence ; and 
we never reproach them for paying too high a price for our liber- 
ties. We have fought less than than two years. Are our patri- 
otism and pluck and courage so soon played out? Surely, the 
fortunes of war thus far have not been against us, that we should 
now lay down our arms. We have fouglit over a hundred battles, 
and have driven the enemy within much narrower limits. \]'e 
have lost nothing : we have gained much / and we hold all we 
gai7i. We have acquired, and still maintain, strong positions on 
the Atlantic coast, and on the Gulf, giving us a base of opera- 
tions in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and 
Texas. We hold Fort Pulaski, watching the entrance of Savannah. 
We control the Mississippi, except at Vicksburg and Port Hudson, 
although sixteen months ago, it was in the hands of the rebels 
from its mouth nearly to St. Louis. We have taken New Orleans, 
the metropolis ol the South ; we occupy the capitals of two of 
the seceded States; on the sacred soil of Virginia, Norfolk is 
again ours, and Fortress Monroe is our great military and naval 
depot. Every considerable force of rebels has been driven out of 
Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Western Virginia, and a large 



13 

part of Tennessee; the heroic Rosecrans has a well-appointed 
and hopeful army of a hundred thousand men far down in the 
heart of the enemy's country; Washington is safe, and all is 
quiet on the Potomac ! 

Besides all this, we have maintained, along the extended coast- 
line, a blockade so effective that every nation under heaven has 
been compelled to respect it ; a blockade which, co-operating with 
onr land forces, hugs the Confederacy like an iron band. 

While the credit of the South must be rapidly wasting, we have 
a masterly system of tinauce, under which we can triple our 
enormous public debt without dangerous depreciation. Every one 
of our State governments is in good running order ; the constable 
with his writ, is respected in every Northern village ; the courts of 
justice are unimpeded; no scliool house is shut up; nearly all 
branches of industry are alive and thrifty. Men lash themselves 
into a fnry, and talk like fools and maniacs about the "despotism of 
the Lincoln government," and then they put in bids for federal 
contracts, and ask for commissions in the army ! The new and 
important questions of Constitutional law which have been sud- 
denly sprung upon the government, under circumstances requiring 
speedy action, may or may not have been wisely decided ; but in 
very rare instances have these decisions operated to the inconven- 
ience of any except those who have forfeited the right to com- 
plain — men who ought to be hanged, but who certainly could not 
be expected to feel — 

" the halter draw, 

With good opinion of the law." 

But why am I at such pains to vindicate the administration ? 
Because confidence in our rulers and leaders is one link in the 
chain of our national safety ; and because it is the weakest link, 
and our cunning enemies are trying to sever it, so that we may 
all fall down together in one general ruin, while bloody treason 
triumphs over us. We must be saved through co-operation with 
the administration, or not saved at all. Even 3'ou who do not re- 
gard the administration as entitled to so much confidence as 1 
have here bespoken for it, must allow that, the weaker the gov- 
ernment is, the more the people must do to strengthen and sustain 
it. No possible good can come from divisions and distractions ; 
we can only succeed through unity of action ; and there can be no 
unity except on the basis of supporting the constituted authorities. 
No change of President is possible for two years to come ; and 
two years is time enough to lose our cause^ either through that 
foreign intervention which is encouraged and invited by our fool- 
ish quarrels with the administration, or through the disgraceful 
surrender of our armies, which may be discouraged, broken up, 
and perhaps starved, for lack of a suitable moral support, a con- 
tinuous reinforcement of new troops, and that suppl}- of their 
wants which must come from the people at home. Before another 
President can he elected, the Confederacy may he recognized and es- 
tahlished^as the first poioer on this cojitinent, unless loe prevent it 
hy a united and unfaltering support of the present President of 
the United States^ in whatever loar policy his convictions may 



14 

require him to adopt. If this policy fails to unite us, what reason 
is there for supposing that we shall be able to unite on the policy 
of a successor, chosen amid the din of armies and the storm of 
maddening passions ? It is appalling to think that any considera- 
ble portion of the people of the North may be either so blind or 
so unpatriotic as to risk the ruin of the Republic for the sake of 
carrying an election, and restoring their political party to power. 
And yet, the attempt, for partisan purposes, is now being made to 
alienate the nation's confidence from its own patriotic s<"andard- 
bearer, by an unscrupulous and malignant system of slander; and 
this too in the face of an armed and powerful foe ! Do the men 
who made James Buchanan President so soon forget that the 
country was involved in its present disorders through the criminal 
folly and pro-slavery servility of their own statesmen ? — or why is 
it that they have so far lost all modesty as to claim for their party 
and their public men a monopoly of administrative wisdom ? To 
me, it is a minor question by what man or men, by what generals 
or statesmen, l^y what party or policy, my country be saved, if it 
be only truly and wholly saved. Perish parties ! perish personal 
ambitions ! perish poor private interests and preferences ! — but 
God save the Republic ! 

And the Republic will be saved! The blood of our brave 
soldiers is not to be slied in vain ; but it shctll wash out the nation's 
sin and shame. There is to be no great Slave Empire to darken and 
damn the continent for ages ; there is to be no divided and war- 
ring people ; but there is to be " Liberty and Union, now and 
forever, one and inseparable." The tides of patriotic enthusiasm 
are rising again, with ever resounding swell, like the voice of 
many waters and mighty thunderings. The kingdom of heaven is 
at hand ; Babylon is falling; the old serpent must die. A sad 
waste of grave-clothes, the old fogies will think it ; but Lazarus 
must come forth. Much tearing, and wallowing and foaming of 
the patient ; but the devil must come out. The Great Rebellion 
writhes, and rages, and threatens, and spits fire ; but One stronger 
than the strong man armed has taken it in hand. There are terri- 
ble scenes yet to come ; ponderous burdens yet to be borne ; 
agony on agony to be endnred ; angry tempests to sweep the 
sky ; — but, as the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, tliis land shall 
be redeemed and our children shall eat their bread in peace. 
With tears and songs will they honor the memory of the wise in 
counsel and brave in fight who carried the Republic through its 
great peril, and strangled forever the mighty Demon. 



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